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Posts tagged: e-Readers

Earlier this month, I read a great article in The New York Times about the benefits of reading real books to your children. I’ve been an avid reader all of my life and a mom for nearly three years, so this article piqued my interest. It also got me thinking about how my own reading habits have changed over time.

As a child, I grew up using physical books. Pretty much everything that I read for education or enjoyment was some form of ink on paper. I also grew up using screens—my family had a home computer and TVs, but e-Readers were a long way off at that point. The books that I read were “book books.”

I bought my first iPad about 5 years ago, and my personal reading habits began to change. Although I still have shelves of physical books, most of the books that I purchase these days are in electronic form. My iPad became my library, and although there was still something appealing about ink-and-paper books, I became fully entrenched in electronic reading. I didn’t think I’d ever go back.

Steve Jobs can be sure of at least one success and that is the instant domination of all blogs around the world with one product launch. There have been many things stipulated, but I would like to get back on the influence the iPad could have on the publishing industry. There are remarks abound, about the great opportunity the iPad poses to publishers. But it should be spelled out explicitly: Steve Jobs is not interested in saving the publishing industry. He wants to sell iGadgets including software and everything around it. What will publishers gain?

Let’s have a look at the numbers: Assuming a consumer buys an iPad for publishing products it means a one-off fee of $500 and then every month an additional $30 (the web access charge) less to spend on publishing products. This money goes into the pockets of Apple and the network provider. Of course a consumer will expect a huge discount in return for the publishing content he reads on the iPad. That is the money the publisher is not getting. Sure, the publisher is saving money by producing e-content. Printing is only a small fraction though, about a seventh of the retail price. The biggest cost factor though is the retail channel which typically receives up to 50% of retail price. However this is the portion Amazon or iBooks are vying for and what they are already charging. In the end there will not be a lot of margin left after giving consumers the discounts they expect.